FROM ALL QUARTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 64, 15 March 1919, Page 19

FROM ALL QUARTERS.

THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY. A quartet of elephants, attached to a travelling show, escaped from their keepers in Winnipeg recently, and caused as much "tanks" ambling' towards the enemy. By unanimous vote ihe authorities decided to give the visitors the "freedom of the city." JAPANESE COMPETITION. Large quantities of Japanese mother-of-pearl buttons are arriving in Great Britain. These are made frcia Australian shell by <-heap Japanese labour, and are beiug offered at considerably below British manufacturers' prices. This is likely to have a detrimental effect on the Australian mother-of-pearl industry. JOFFRES BEST COMRADE. A handsome woman, tall, fair, and witU i lively disposition. Mine. J off re is the ;reat soldier's second wife. After sixteen •ears as a widower. JolTre married his present wife in 1901, the year which also saw iis promotion to be general of brigade. Dn more than one occasion .Toffre has reerred to his wife as his "best comrade," md no woman is more devotedly attached 0 her husband. FRANKNESS REWARDED BY MAXIMUM FINE. "U'rauknees should not go unrewarded," said .ludge Edward Fleming, of the Kansas City Municipal Court, as he lined Claude SltnipEOU £100, the limit. Simpson was arrested while standing in front of a saloon hy :i patrolman who saw part of a "jimmy" protruding from Simpson's pocket. Simpson, who was unemployed, admitted, he intruded to break into the saloon. After learning his fine Simpson eaid he wae glad, he was arrested "before he entered the saloon, as he then would have to face a penitentiary sentence. "Judge," he said, "It's just as well to look on the bright side of things." "Some Poilyanna," remarked the judge. " BRITAIN'S ALLIES MAY STALK AS VICTORS." Writing in the "Zukunft," in connection with Germany's policy of alliances, Maximilian Harden declares that Germany's rulers merely squandered the strength of the nation in an attempt to maintain the Old World system, which either had to be radically transformed or perish. "The Hapsburg system, with its wiles and malice, Bulgaria's lust for power, and the maladministration of the Young Turki were not to be saved," says Harden. Harden concludes: "Britain's allies may now stalk about as victors, while Germany'e companions have all ibeeomec ripples." TRAP FOR RECKLESS MOTORISTS. The automobilist who smashes and run 3 away will not live to do it another day II a bill by Senator Flaherty, San Francisco, gets in its work according to schedule. The Act provides that celluloid or paper stickers bearing the licensed number of the car be pasted around the rim of each headlight at four-inch intervals, and around the windshield at not more than ten-inch intervals. In lieu of the stickers the glass may be etched. If a motorist is in a smash-ttp, some of the broken glass that he leaves behind will be bound to carry his license number, and his detection will be gTeatly simplified, says Flaherty. A PASTOR IN PRISON. Prison holds no terrors for Rev. .7. C. Bolster, former Congregationalist pastor of Antioch, who is held in the Oakland city prison pending his preliminary examination on a charge of embezzling 1200 dollars (says a San 'Francisco paper). He considers that it will offer him an unusual field for missionary work, and expressed himself as being glad that Judge Smith did sot order his release. The minister, who is accused of unlawfully taking a newly-purchased autombile. which was only partially paid for, from Oakland to Los Angeles, improved his time and opportunity on the way back from the 'southern city by reforming two accused criminals, and later converted several fellow prisoners. UNDER THIS BOIBHEVISTS IK RUSSIA. The Bolshevist leaders are deliberatelysetting themselves to arouse all th e beastlike instincts in the Ignorant mob, not with; any view to a subsequent reconstruction of society, but merely in oi-der to gratify a cold-blooded intellectual curiosity! The ne\r Government in Russia allows no 'books to be 'published. AH newspapers, save those which incite their readers to acts of. redoubled violence against the bourgeoisie, are suppressed. The Commissary of Education abolishes the great Russian writers from the schools and replaces them, by a modern poet who has won notoriety toy his glorification of the obscene. Gorky gives us a picture of the children. A handful of Red Guards are dragging what was once a man along the street. They bav e battered his face with the butts of their guns. All that can be seen of him is blood, a tangle of hair, and an eye still hanging to the socket by a sinew. Behind them is a crowd lof children running and 'shouting on their way to the river. After a little while the children come running back, laughing and shouting: "iHe's drowned." But the children laugh seldom enough. Most of them are starving. The peasants are blockading the towns, and the Bolshevists, who knowthat their power depends on the acquiescence of the peasantry, connive at their extortions.—"The Nation," London. FRIENDLY SUBMARINE ATTACKED. DESTROYERS TAKE NO CHANCES. One of the greatest perils to Allied submarines during the war was attack by friendly destroyers. A submarine was assumed to be an enemy when sighted by the ships of any Allied nation, and it wa9 up to the submarine to show recognition signals if she was not German.

But If it was a destroyer that sighted the eubmarlne, she was always making for the little craft by the time the recognition signals could lie shown. A slight hitch Iα getting up a flag or tiring a rocket would mean the submarine would be forced to seek safety beneath the surface. Probably the last attack of this sort was made by American destroyers on a new British submarine of large type. She was being tested when sighted by destroyers, ,and they made for her at full speed. Something happened to the signal system, and the underseas craft submerged as depth charges began to tear up the water. One charge shook her until the crow thought she was doomed. Charge after charge exploded nearby. Finally she struck bottom at 300 ft, and It was found she was not badly damaged. She was kept on the bottom until her commander was certain, the destroyers had gone. Then, she was cautiously brought to the surface "She Joes not need any tnor e testing alter that experience," the commander reI ported to the officer in charge «£ the sul* [marine but.